Mark gritted his teeth, swung around in his station chair square to the vid plate, and pressed the keypad to lower his seat till his booted feet were flat to the floor. He was fully kitted in Naismith's officer's grays. Quinn had dressed him as though he were a doll, or an idiot child. Quinn, Bothari-Jesek, and Thorne had then proceded to fill his head with a mass of sometimes-conflicting instructions on how to play Miles in the upcoming interview. As if I didn't know. The three captains now each sat in station chairs out of range of the vid pick-up in the Peregrine's tac room, ready to prompt him through an ear-bug. And he'd thought Galen was a puppet master. His ear itched, and he wriggled the bug in irritation, earning a frown from Bothari-Jesek. Quinn had never stopped scowling.

Quinn had never stopped. She still wore her blood-soaked fatigues. Her sudden inheritance of command of this debacle had allowed her no rest. Thorne had cleaned up and changed to ship grays, but obviously had not slept yet. Both their faces stood out pale in the shadows, too sharply lined. Quinn had made Mark take a stimulant when, getting him dressed, she'd found him too muzzy-mouthed for her taste, and he did not quite like its effects. His head and eyes were almost too clear, but his body felt beaten. All the edges and surfaces of the tac room seemed to stand out with unnatural clarity. Sounds and voices in his ears seemed to have a painful serrated quality, sharp and blurred at once. Quinn was on the stuff too, he realized, watching her wince at a high electronic squeal from the comm equipment.

("All right, you're on,") said Quinn through the ear-bug as the vid plate in front of him began to sparkle. They all shut up at last.

The image of Baron Fell materialized, and frowned at him too. Georish Stauber, Baron Fell of House Fell, was unusual for the leader of a Jacksonian Great House in that he still wore his original body. An old man's body. The Baron was stout, pink of face, with a shiny liver-spotted scalp fringed by white hair trimmed short. The silk tunic he wore in his House's particular shade of green made him look like a hypothyroid elf. But there was nothing elfin about his cold and penetrating eyes. Miles was not intimidated by a Jacksonian Baron's power, Mark reminded himself. Miles was not intimidated by any power backed by less than three entire planets. His father the Butcher of Komarr could eat Jacksonian Great Houses for breakfast.

He, of course, was not Miles.

Screw that. I'm Miles for the next fifteen minutes, anyway. 

"So, Admiral," rumbled the Baron. "We meet again after all."

"Quite." Mark managed not to let his voice crack.

"I see you are as presumptuous as ever. And as ill-informed."

"Quite."

("Start talking, dammit,") Quinn's voice hissed in his ear.